Point Zero: Tournament: 3

Point Zero: Tournament: 3

…

Commissioned by Ichypa

Wordcount: 2500

…

I wonder if this is how the Roman Emperors felt, while they watched people go at each other like madmen for the slightest scrap of fame and fortune.

In a private booth with a clear sight of the battleground below, while the masses squabbled for a clear line of sight.

While everyone else helped themselves to free food provided by the Intrepid’s fabricators, I had at my disposal an actual chef-bot ready to cook whatever I wanted.

As the whole world was at war, desperate to survive another day, I sat on a comfortable, lush throne to take in bloodsport as entertainment.

I really had to take care and not allow myself to get caught up in all this, because I was liking it a whole lot more than I’d ever admit.

I sipped some wine and helped myself to some cheesy appetizers that paired with it magnificently, as the first match of the day was called.

The Intrepid tournament rules were simple.

You could choose to keep fighting after winning, or take a backstep and rest for a bout, before coming up again.

Naturally, they liked to see people make a clean sweep through the whole tournament, so people brought their official “A” game to the table. They weren’t about to bring out the right, proper ground-pounders that were their secret weapons, but if it was already an open secret it was here and ready for the fight.

Nothing fancy, just a flat-out brawl.

Perfect for Elliot, in all honesty.

A shrill bell rang through the stadium and the chatter of thousands stopped instantly.

“Good evening, Point Zero! This is your honest, wonderful host Smashmouth and his best buddy in the world: James Lime ready to provide you all with the absolute, best commentary for this very special tournament!”

“Yo.”

“C’mon, man, help me liven things up!”

“It’s plenty livened up already.”

“Damn, dude, help a guy out!”

The hosts were on a combination of flying platform and AV at the center of the arena. I hardly paid them any attention, since I was busy ordering a nice Sunday Roast for my meal. The robo-chef was hard at work, especially since I asked for a whole party, but that was me being a good girlfriend. I wasn’t going to leave Gwen out of a great meal.

“Anyway, yours truly is a winner of a hundred different matches, both real and simulated all over the world. This motormouth has the chops to back up being your man on the scene! Lime, meanwhile, is an expert in—

“Fighting.”

“Give me a break! At least let me give you a little sizzle!”

“Gross.”

“I wasn’t hitting on you!”

The friendly banter was fairly amusing, but both hosts knew that they established themselves with the audience well enough. One was enthusiastic and witty, while the other one was calm and logical. Good choice of commentators, especially since anyone with a brain could just look up their claims of being experts, and those who didn’t care would just listen along with a smile on their faces.

“Anyway, it looks like our first two contestants are entering the Arena. We’ve got Point Zero’s own murder machine, its own judge, jury, and executioner, the leader of your favorite UN-sponsored militia: Cooommmaaannnndeeeerrrr… ELLIOT!” Gwen entered the scene in full regalia and with a few upgrades. More armor beneath the hooded coat, and with a combat mask with a red visor instead of the usual orange. It was easy to see how I mistook her as a man. She was more lanky than slender, while waring all those clothes. When they were off… calm down, woman, it’ll be hours before you can get what you want! “And, in the opposite corner is—

“He’s out.”

“OH MY GOD, THE COMMANDER JUST SHOT HIS OPPONENT INSTANTLY!”

There was a roar across the stadium, while Gwen lowered her hand. She used her usual trick with her fingers, which turned them into hypersonic, guided tendrils with monomolecular tips. It pinched straight through her opponent, activated the Intrepid’s safety protocols, and the mans’ life was saved just before he was dead.

To be perfectly honest, I thought that I’d be the girlfriend on the sidelines fretting over her lover’s wellbeing and safety when I thought of this tournament at first.

That wasn’t the case in the absolute slightest.

Instead of following convention, the UN decided to upend the whole board and tell the rest of the world: “We have more aces in our deck than the rest of you combined.”

Which was just perfect.

…

Speed.

Power.

Ability.

Some say that you need one of those three to win a fight.

Gwen took the more practical approach of having all three.

“ELLIOT’S KILLING EVERYONE IN AN INSTANT! IS THIS EVEN LEGAL!?” Smashmouth was up in arms, riling up the crowd, while contenders streamed out of the opposite end of the arena towards Gwen. Barely any of them made it a quarter of the way to her. The blood spilled was rapidly gaining fame and notoriety on the web. “Can anyone even hope to pass the Red Line!?”

The Intrepid were very scrupulous before they pulled someone out, and some people were tough enough to take a hypersonic knife to the chest and live. Therefore, as the tournament progressed, a solid band of red started forming a few meters around the entrance of the battlefield. It was Gwen’s effective killzone for most of the chaff that she encountered.

“Most countries have set their elites on the backline with the intention of softening up the enemy. As you can see, factions formed behind each entrance to the battleground.” Lime explained the more political parts of the fight to a larger audience. He was the analyst, while Smashmouth was they Hypebeast, or whatever the masses called announcers nowadays. Wow, being lavishly tended is really bringing out my inner imperialist. “The UN portion is waiting for orders and their part in the fight behind the Commander. If the Commander continues to win, the UN will win by having the rest default… unless they have some intentions against the Commander.”

“Are you saying we might see a betrayal!?”

“Perhaps.”

Yeah, that wasn’t happening.

Gwen was the most straight-laced and by-the-books officer you could ever encounter in Verdict’s ranks. Every situation as approached with policy and mission-statement in mind. Whoever decided to assign her to the position was probably retired and lavishly living it up on the moon, because they secured a superpower for the UN with a nice salary and great benefits. No, not only a superpower too, because Gwen was scrupulous when it came to securing assets for her position and filing them correctly, so the UN had suppressants and the world’s first series of Zero-Point Energy at their disposal.

Gwen didn’t have a greedy bone in her body.

“Oh, what’s this!? Someone’s tanking the first dozen hits! Oh, my goodness, they’ve passed the Red Line!” That got my attention and I looked towards the fight. “It looks like some sort of Bio-Armor!”

To be exact, Gwen was facing off against one of the few trump cards the UN’s enemies could field. The UN was against further research into the Infection, especially when it came to studying how the Infection worked with augmentation technology. While no one sane wanted monsters with the processing power of supercomputers, or heavy artillery, other powers disagreed and pursued the research to apparently great success.

Of course, in this case, great success meant a few dozen steps faster than everyone else, before getting the treatment that most armored enemies got from Gwen.

The poor sod got halfway turned into a pancake by pure gravity, before the Intrepid got him.

“And, a stunning, new reveal from our Demon Commander of Verdict! Can anyone hope to defeat the almighty Minos!?”

I took a bite of a rather delicious crepe and gave my own reply, even though no one could hear.

“Unlikely.”

…

As the matches continued, I decided to see what was going on with the web.

Given the fact most of humanity lived in sealed-off habitats across the world, the net was turned into a virtual paradise of sorts as a refuge from the harsh adversities of life. The UN and other governments of Earth were given the tech freely by the rest of Galactic society, so that we could interact with them when we fully connected, and as a humanitarian effort to reduce the rates of suicide across the planet.

Everyone with time off could just plug into the net, enjoy a private world where they had everything they could want, and live the dream until they had to go back to work. Time dilation also made it so that “work” could be between weeks of simulated time, which really let people “live” out their lives as they wished.

But, that’s how things are for normies who just used the internet as a tool

For a true net-goer such as myself, it made everything a whole lot more funny.

And, fucked-up, but I had the plug-ins to ignore that stuff… unless I didn’t want to.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to go into the net, but I had my communicator on hand so that I could see some commentary from people on the net and not using time dilation.

It was as funny as I expected.

‘WTF is this? I thought this wasn’t going to be a curbstomp!’

‘Yeah, I thought we were going to be able to make bets. I had all my Sh1t Co1ns ready!’

‘Lmao, this nerd thinks anyone would bet crypto.”

‘Crypto = ded.’

‘Shut up!”

As usual, the net was making it about themselves and clogging up the public chat for the stream, even while moderators with great rigs and time dilation were working overtime. Any nerd with a semblance coding knowledge basically had access to Gal-Tech software for net interactions. Everyone was into an admin, technically, and nothing was restricted. You had to put up your own firewalls for everything, or have air-gaps and other physical security measures, otherwise you were just asking for trouble.

Public chatrooms were basically the survival of the fittest between degenerates and mods.

As it once was, so it shall be again.

‘This is just like those garbage LNs that I read all the time. Protag-kun probably has a harem hanging around somewhere.”

‘If garbage, why read all time?’

‘Because I am garbage.’

‘holy based.’

‘based’

‘based’

‘based.

I was about to type in a reply when I saw a message scroll up.

‘Whoever’s into tentacles in this world will be on the first flight over.’

‘holy shit u rite.’

‘Demon Commander is actually a tentacle commander… he’s not an LN protagonist, this guy’s a doujin protagonist!’

‘Some guys get all the luck.’

‘Unless he likes normal girls.’

‘Yeah, his sol if he likes normies.’

‘BRB, booking flight to point zero.’

‘I’d ask if hot, but most girls are 8/10 thanks to the infection.’

‘Tru.’

‘tru’

‘fr fr fr’

‘Fucking Zoomers.’

On one hand, I’ve been in polyamorous relationships before. Personally, I found that they required a lot of time and personal investment, but the payoff was well worth it. One of the things I missed being hotshot genius with a big pocketbook back on the isles was my ability to just work the scene and leave no one unsatisfied.

By all means, I should be intrigued and enticed by the thought of a few mere wonderful women joining us… instead I barely managed to stop myself from sending a few bots down to track the person who made the comment about making a flight to try and seduce Gwen.

I also had to stop myself from muttering about skanks and glaring at any girl looking Gwen’s way.

It made me feel like a giant hypocrite… but at the same time I wanted to hiss and keep Gwen all to myself.

But what if Gwen wanted to ravage someone while holding me close and caring only about me, after we’re married—

Nghhn.

Okay.

I’m not a complete hypocrite.

Wait, did I just take marriage as the next logical step to our relationship?

Bloody hell, I’ve lost the whole war, not just a couple battles!

…

After deciding that I spent enough time on the net for the day, I focused on the situation at hand.

Which was someone managing to get to Gwen.

“Finally, someone’s finally reached the Demon Commander! Kid goes by the name of Martin and he’s ZPM born and raised!”

“No one lives long here without knowing how to fight.”

“Even our resident downer agrees that this’ll be interesting folks!”

Martin seemed to be a hybridized specialist of sorts. Power armor combined with using his own Infection ability. He blitzed through the arena like blur, almost looking like he was teleporting, and avoided Gwen’s long ranged attacks. Circles imprinted into the ground where Gwen’s attacks missed, while her ranged tendrils tried to give chase and failed. Glancing hits that reached him, once the distance was shortened significantly enough, glanced off his armor plates.

Then, suddenly, there was a roar amongst the audience as he stood within striking distance of Gwen.

“Here we go folks, it looks like we’ve actually got a contender!”

“Let’s see what happens now.”

Martin’s arms opened up and barrels were pointed Gwen’s way. Most were slapped away by her telekinesis, but that did the job of diverting her offensive power to defense. That gave her opponent the time to ramp up, bursting through his own armor, and turning into a massive, overgrown lizard ready to breathe plasma.

The attack was strong enough to have the shields go up around the audience.

So, for a split second, I was worried about Gwen.

But, in the end, I shouldn’t have been.

“OH MY GOD SHE HAS A SWOOOOORRRDDDDDDD!” The little, dinky plasma sword I’d asked about earlier came into full swing. It didn’t have the normal, blue hue, but instead had a startling blazing violet, like from those old, giant robot animes in space. Not only that, but it was obviously hooked up to something on the small of her back, which was probably a ZPM. I put two and two together, as I realized why it was massively upgraded and overengineered: it was meant to project more than just a few feet of superheated plasma. “AND ITS FUUUCCCKIIINNNGG MAASSIIIIVVEEE!”

A simple vertical slash at full output sent forward a wave of destruction from the weapon at Gwen’s opponent. It met the projectile that he sent her way and cleaved straight through and arced his way... and before it could hit the Intrepid whisked him away.

Then, I realized the shield wasn’t for Gwen’s opponent.

It was for Gwen’s attack.

The crescent-shaped beam of violet energy smacked into the shield and stayed against it for second after second, threatening to break through Intrepid shielding for what felt like eternity until it dissipated.

But only after the shield’s shine waned a little.

Well, shit.

That was one hell of a way to show off that you had someone that could scratch the Intrepid.